And We Were Magnificent
by sassyclassy-ass
Summary: Hinata is sealed. Life goes on. A story in five parts


Years later, this is what Hinata Hyuga will remember this from her sealing: the smell of rosemary and something that was distinctly her mother's, the harsh line of her father's mouth, four white walls; the bandages wrapped tightly around her head doing very little to stop the pain and Naruto so blazing and beautiful in his anger as they make their way home.

Three days later, she will be married, trading the name Hyuga for Uzumaki. She'll sign her name down as a Uzumaki and even then, as she'll be writing it down, she'll know that the seal will always mean she is a Hyuga.

A branch member comes knocking at the Uzumaki residence in the middle of the night just a weeks after her wedding. "You're needed at the compound." She's just in a robe and her arms tighten around herself. She can hear Naruto stirring in the other room, probably just realising now that she's gone. Her heart clenches and she wonder for a moment what it would be like to be Naruto just for a moment and just say no, curl up in the bed next to him and just sleep. She's a Uzumaki now. She doesn't owe the Hyuga's anything.

But the branch member glances up to the spot just above her eyes. She stiffens, nails dig into the soft of her palm. It takes everything in her to stop herself from touching the place she knows her forehead is uncovered for everyone to see and just like that her no shrivels up and dies as quickly as it came.

"Give me a moment to get changed," she finally tells the man. She doesn't say no but she does the shut the door gently in front of him. She makes her way to the room. Naruto is sat up when she enters, blanket pooled around his waist. That old desire comes rushing back and she's hit with the urge to just curl up next to him, hide under the blankets and forget about the world outside. She blinks, once twice and moves towards Naruto, kissing the top of his head before she pulls clothes out.

"Who was that? Is it a mission?" She shakes her head, not yet trusting her voice. Naruto stays silent, waiting patiently for her to say something.

"No," she says slowly. "I'm needed at the compound." Naruto stiffens and climbs out of bed, striding towards her and grabbing her by the shoulders. His grip is gentle but she still startles and stills. She shivers at the sudden warmth. She hadn't realised that she was cold.

"I'm going with you," he says, voice brooking no argument but she shakes her head.

"No, you're not Hyuga." A tiny bitter voice reminds her that neither is she, not anymore at least but she squashes the voice quick enough. You couldn't just stop being Hyuga. Whoever you were, if you were Hyuga, you were caged. If Hinata bartered poorly that was on her.

Naruto doesn't say anything, blue blue eyes studying her intensely. Her heart rattles in her chest and her cheeks feels warm and flushed. She knows its silly to feel like this when they a married, to feel as if all her skin has been stripped under his stare and left all her nerves to every breath of open air. Its too much and she wonders if she will ever get used to this.

"I'll be back within the hour, two hours at most," she reassures him. In truth she can't say when she'll back. If she'll be home within the hour or if she'll only come back when day breaks. She feels bad for the small lie but Naruto nods, finally relaxing and she finds that she doesn't feel too bad.

He cups her face so gently and kisses her once, twice, three times. The harsh knock of the waiting messenger breaks it and she's reminded once again that these four walls can't hide or protect them from anything. Not life and certainly not duty.

"I'll see you in an hour," Naruto says against her lips before he breaks away from her. She nods slowly, not having the strength to say anything else.

She opens the front door, finally stepping out to meet the impatient messenger. "Are you ready Hinata-san?" He asks her and she nods, not saying anything or even minding the sudden change in address.

After all she's just like him now.

She finds its not so hard to live life as a branch member. She wakes up to Naruto most days, goes on a mission, trains, fulfils out any needs or desires for the clan. It feels like a small price to pay to be with Naruto.

There are of course days when she is reminded that the seal is heavy and a cage always chafes. Days when she has to remind herself to bite her tongue and when the disconnect between her and Hanabi feels so much sharper; days when she is made to feel small and is met with unbearable pain just because someone bigger than her can.

Those are the days where she finds it harder to adapt. Its those days that she understands the price she's paid. She wishes Neji was here the most on those days.

"I'm home," Naruto's voice is booming and she knows that she should move, cover the seal up again and greet him like a good wife would but she can't. She can't do anything other than study the brand on her forehead.

"Hinata?" She sees Naruto's reflection in the mirror and turns to face him. "What are you doing and why do you have your bandage off?" He asks, confusion filing his voice. She shrugs delicately and he frowns at the roll of her shoulders.

"I'm thinking." Naruto's lip twitches, a shadow of a smile but he doesn't say anything even when she turns away.

"What about?" He asks, moving towards her and crouching by her side. She glances down at him but turns back towards her reflection. The green seal stands out, ugly and harsh and wrong. Something stirs inside the pit of her stomach. It isn't regret but its sad all the same.

"I needed to see the seal, to be reminded the price of my choices." Naruto stiffens besides her and she can sense wariness coming off him in waves.

"Is the price so high?" Naruto's voice is filled with guilt but she knows that he's not asking this to shame or guilt her. Everything about Naruto is so fully and completely honest and even when his is hurt by it he always ever asks for the truth. It makes her love him all the more.

"Sometimes," she tells him honestly, "but it's never as heavy as it should be," she tells him honestly. Naruto takes her hand and presses a kiss to it and then kisses the spot where the seal is placed.

"When I'm Hokage, I'll make sure not a single person is ever sealed." His words are certain and fierce. The Hyuga would let itself burn before that happened but because he is Naruto and she is Hinata she believes him. The seal would go, one way or the other.

Sometimes she and Naruto play a game. Its not often that they play this game. This one is more sad than anything than else but sometimes its needed. Needed for the nights where its just the two of them presses down so hard that neither can truly breathe.

"My mother always smelt of rosemary and something spiced." Naruto's fingers draw patterns down her bare arm as she talks. Its rare that she ever talks about her mother. Is rare that she remembers her mother enough to even mention her. When Hinata thinks of her, she remembers the tired sad looking woman from photos, her dead eyes; her body being pulled out of the lake by her father's men. The loving, the caring, the telling her that her blankets would protect her from the monsters comes second if not at all.

This is a good night though and the memory of her mother, the good ones are so sharp and bright that it cuts into her bone. "She loved to garden and she's travelling the world collecting plants that are needed for healing." Her story is far more boring that all of Naruto's about his parents but she felt and odd ball of pride and she found herself smiling. Naruto pushed himself from behind her and she twisted over to look at him.

"She sounds awesome." She smiles up at Naruto, wishing that her mother was here to see this. Wishing that she could see that one day she would be happy.

"Yeah, she was."

"I want to see all of you." Naruto's voice was gravelly, filled with quiet expectation. It makes her skin feel all too tight and if it's just shrunk or was wrapped around a body too big for it. Naruto is on his knees, a long line of tension, too far away from her. She reaches towards him, desperate for any type of contact. Her hand falls to where she knows he is hard and warm. Its nothing more than a butterfly touch but Naruto shudders, buckling slightly into her, desperate for more contact. His desperation runs all through her like electricity. It makes her head all dizzy and all she wants is the weight of his cock in mouth, his taste, his gasps and moans. She wants it all, wants as much as she can take but Naruto batts her hand away.

"Clothes, please," his voice is low, begging. It shouldn't send a pulse of heat that strikes the pit of her stomach, going all the way to her toes but it does. Power, she feels _powerful_. The bedroom is the only place she can make Naruto really and truly beg and it always makes something warm and raw split and spread all over

She removes her hands off Naruto and makes quick work on her clothes. Naruto doesn't move to help her. Instead watching her with heavy heady eyes.

She's nude before him, Naruto's gaze darkens and time slows and freezes, thick with inevitably and headiness. Naruto crawled towards her until he was on top of her and she could feel every hard line of his body. He rocked into her and she gasped, her nails digging into back as she desperately tried to rock back.

"All of you, I want to see all of you." His fingers gently traced the edge of the bandage that covered her seal. It was as if someone had triggered the seal but this time there was no pain just heat and shame.

"No," she said firmly, pushing his hand away. The heat triggered by his touch persisted. "It's ugly."

Naruto shook his heard hard. "Not a single part of you could ever be ugly," he said, words fierce. He rolled sharply back into her and she gasped loudly. "You're so beautiful Hinata and you don't even know it." He says, frantic and frenzied, kissing down and down and down until he's set his mouth, laid the flat of his tongue against her cunt.

Everything begins to break into startling pieces of light at that bit.

Later, much later after she has broken under his mouth again and again; after the weight of his cock in her hand, the feeling of his moving and shifting within her, gasping her name over and over again. After all of this, she will sit up and undo the bandages all around her head for bed like she usually does. She stares at the bandages at the sleeping man besides her. She'll fall asleep with white strips of cloth clenched between her fingers.

Naruto's smile when she does not cover her seal for the day is blinding in all its glory. It is brighter than the sun.

 _I'm pregnant._

The words felt hollow and empty. She knew she was meant to feel something. This had been what she had wanted almost all her life but she couldn't feel anything other than the tight cold clench of fear.

She knows that Naruto knows something up. She wakes up almost night, terrified and shaking, images of babies with their foreheads branded and their eyes wide and terrified. She briefly considers terminating the pregnancy after one bad vision where the screams of her baby was so loud and piercing and snatched from her arms before she could even properly feel the weight of her child. Naruto didn't know yet and her baby wasn't formed yet. You couldn't grieve something that didn't exist yet. That thought died at the sight of Naruto beside her worried and scared.

"You ok?" She nodded and when he still looked unconvinced, she spoke.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine." She breathed out deeply, willing her voice to sound anything but guilty. But even when Naruto rolled over to sleep after much worrying and nattering, she still felt that guilt all bone deep and wrong.

Our child, _my_ child, with Naruto's smile and hair and our love and who's eyes? Love was sweet but it didn't change the reality of the seal. She was selfish either way.

It all makes her miss her mother all the more. She wants someone who understands, someone who can tell her that it will be alright. Who will kiss her forehead and tell her to hide under the blankets away from all the monsters. Sometimes this all feels more real than the child growing inside her day by day.

There was an old saying amongst the Hyuga women that motherhood was a blessing disguised as trap. Had her mother felt as trapped as she was as scared? How had she coped? But then she remembered that her mother hadn't coped. That both her and Hanabi hadn't been protected. She wasn't her mother. She refused to be,

So, when Naruto asks for the umpteenth time what's wrong, she finally talks.

"Promise me you'll stop the use of the cage bird seal. Promise me that our child will never be marked."

"Of course, I'll never let anything happen to our children." And because this is Naruto and she is Hinata and because they always make their promises and they always believe and never go back, Hinata breathes deeply, straightens up and opens her mouth to tell him.


End file.
